


hang on past the last exit

by advantagetexas



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M, There is no Happy Ending Here, This is pure angst, Unrequited Love, abandon all hope ye who enter, also theres a tiny mention of implied cheating but its not explicitly stated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 21:06:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10557718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advantagetexas/pseuds/advantagetexas
Summary: Wash is in love with Tucker. He thinks. Maybe. It's something. But Tucker...Tucker is Tucker and nothing is ever easy, and Wash is, well, the way he is, and nothing ever works out. Some stories are just meant to end in tragedy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> wash is my sweet depressed boy, I don't know why I hurt him so much sometimes. we both know he don't deserve this, and yet here we are. title is a lyric from "no children" by the mountain goats, one of my all time favorite songs.

“I’m just…afraid,” Wash said, out of the blue one day as they were walking back from the pier, the sun just beginning to set over the horizon, coloring the water a vibrant mix of yellows and golds and reds.

“Afraid of what?” Tucker asked, giving his hand a squeeze of acknowledgement. His hands were so big that they almost dwarfed Wash’s when they were clasped together.

“Of everything,” he said as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “I’ve always been afraid of everything, you know that.”

“Are you afraid of this?” Tucker asked, swinging their hands up for him to see and then letting them drop to their side again.

“Of course,” Wash replied, avoiding making eye contact with him.

“Are you afraid of me?” Tucker asked, after a pause as they jumped a large puddle. It had rained earlier, and the city was covered in oil-slicked water. The rainbow reflections would almost be beautiful if they weren’t so destructive. Funny how that goes.

“Sometimes,” Wash admitted with a small shrug. “I’m afraid you’ll leave me.”

“I wouldn’t, you know me, you know I wouldn’t,” Tucker says, a look of actual fear crossing his face and almost making Wash feel guilty.

“I know, but…” Wash trailed off, looking for the exact words he meant, “I don’t know if I could live without you now.”

“You’ve done it before,” Tucker pointed out, as they sat down on a bench at the rail stop, waiting for the next one. The lightboard said it would be 15 minutes, but they were often late this time of night.

“I wasn’t happy before,” he countered, resting his head on Tucker’s shoulder, staring out across the street at the courtyard full of suited businessmen all getting off from work.

“And you’re happy now?” Tucker asked softly, leaning his head on his and tapping his fingers on the back of Wash’s hand.

“I’m happy when I’m here. Sometimes it gets bad, but it’s always better when I’m here.” They sat there in relative silence, only the noises of the city around them, the colors of traffic and buildings and lively people swirling in the rapidly declining dark. There were no stars here in the city, which was the only thing he missed from his hometown. The fatal flaw of the place that brought him so much joy. Though, he supposed that everything had to have at least one flaw, one crack in the armor, so to speak. Some things just had more than others. He was convinced that he was nothing but cracks. Something in him had shattered, and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to repair it. He was reduced to shards, sharp and hostile and unwanted.

“I’m glad you’re still around,” Tucker said eventually, so quiet that Wash almost didn’t hear him. “I thought I was going to lose you and I was so, so scared. I don’t ever want to be that scared again.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, but he didn’t promise anything. ‘Never promise me’, he’d said to him once, ‘because you don’t know if you’re going to be able to keep it’. Wash had stopped, because he knew he was right. The world was a cruel place and it took and took and you could never be sure just how things would play out. He’d never told Tucker that sometimes his promises were the only thing that kept him around. Never told him that they grounded him and gave him obligations to live for. It just didn’t seem important anymore.

“Don’t be sorry,” Tucker said suddenly, turning to look at him and shrugging his head off his shoulder. “You never have to apologize for being sick. You never have to apologize for asking for help.”

“It wasn’t a cry for help,” Wash started half-angrily, but he cut him off before he could finish.

“It was. You might not have thought that it was, but it was,” he said with absolute certainty in his voice. That was his fatal flaw, he thought to himself sometimes. Arrogance. Not enough to be blinding, and not about large, important things, but about things like this, about him, it was pretty evident. “I…I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t, but…I’m just glad you said something.”

“Yeah,” he replied simply, as he turned away again, letting Wash rest his head back on his shoulder.

“I…can you promise me something?” Tucker asked suddenly, and he looked up at him in surprise and confusion.

“Of course, anything.”

“Can you promise me at least ‘til May? Things will be better by then, I’m sure of it.”

“I…listen, I can’t-“

“I know, I know. It’s hard, and…and it’s almost impossible to promise for sure, but tell me anyway. Please,” he said, an almost pleading tone in his voice, his face an emotionless mask, which was strange for someone who was usually so vibrant and loud and _alive_.

“I promise,” Wash said, putting a conviction he had never known naturally into his voice. “I can promise you until at least May.” Tucker untwined their hands, and wrapped his arms around Wash’s shoulders, pulling him to his chest in a tight hug, as if he was afraid that when he let go he would disappear. Wash did nothing, didn’t move, didn’t speak, just felt the tears welling up in his eyes, heard himself start to sob in Tucker’s arms.

“It’s just so hard,” he managed to force out between quiet sobs.

“What is?” Tucker asked, his voice the softest Wash had ever heard it, in the same tone you’d use to speak to a wounded animal.

“Living,” Wash replied simply, and Tucker reached up to smooth his hair, the other hand rubbing circles into his back.

“I know it is, I know,” he said into Wash’s shoulder. “But you’re still here, and I’m still here, and everything is gonna be just fine.”

“You can’t promise that.”

Tucker was quiet for a while after that, simply holding Wash until he stopped sobbing, then letting him go as the tram finally arrived, the doors sliding open to allow them on. He held Wash’s hand again, leading him by it into the crowded car.

“Maybe not here, but somewhere,” he said, just as the door closed and the tram took off down the road.

“What?” Wash asked, keeping his voice down to avoid bothering the other passengers.

“I can’t promise that everything’s going to be fine here, but somewhere it is,” he clarifies, before going quiet again, looking out the window at the brightly lit city around them, the pillars of lights from the surrounding skyscrapers lighting the street better than any streetlight in Wash’s hometown ever could.

\----------------------------------------------------------

“I just need to know,” Wash spat, half angrily half filled with grief, one hand balled into a tight fist at his side, “Did you ever really love me at all?”

“In a way I did, I promise I did. I loved you, I still love you, look, just…” Tucker sighed, the effort of explaining clear on his face. “You always knew it wasn’t you,” he said, his voice softening as he looked down at Wash with that look of pity he’d come to know all too well. He didn’t want this fucking pity. He’d spent years and years trying to avoid this shit, but the second he finally opens up and lays his emotions on the table this is what fucking happens. He hated it.

“I know. I just…I had this…this delusion, that maybe someday it’d all work out,” Wash sighed, forcing down a sobbing hiccup as he talked, his hand at his side unclenching, his fingers splaying out before relaxing again. “I loved you so much that I figured there had to be something there that was…that was more.”

“But my-“

“No, I know, your girlfriend. Your beautiful, kind, smart, caring girlfriend, I know,” he said, looking up to meet Tucker’s softened gaze with a sad smile that he knew didn’t quite reach his eyes. “She’s wonderful, and I hope you two are happy together for the rest of your lives, I mean that, genuinely.”

“I’m sorry,” Tucker said simply, after a moment’s pause of them looking at each other in sullen, stifling silence.

“It’s okay, I’ll be fine eventually,” Wash gave him another half-hearted smile, crossing his arms over his chest as the early spring breeze blew through the train station and through his thin jacket. “I’m always fine eventually.”

“You and I both know that’s not true.”

“Yeah. I…I’ll probably never not be in love with you. I think…I think you were _it_ for me, yknow?,” he said, looking past him at the schedule monitor as the realization of the words hit him. Fuck. 10 more minutes until his train would be here. The ticket in his jacket pocket was getting heavier and heavier by the second. “It’s okay. In another universe we made it work. There’s an infinite number of universes where we made it work.”

“There’s an infinite number of universes where I love you, you mean,” Tucker asked, turning back to look at the monitor too.

“Not just that. Like, there’s a million universes where we’re together, sure. There’s a million universes where I never fell in love with you. There’s a million universes where we never met. There’s a million universes where we met once, right here on this train platform, and then never saw each other again,” he rambled, bracing himself against the gust of cold wind that swept through the corridor as a train pulled up at the opposite platform. “There’s a million universes where we’re both okay,” he almost whispered, adjusting the bag on his shoulder.

“I think we’re both pretty okay now,” Tucker said softly, almost sounding annoyed at the assertion that he wasn’t fine and looking back at the time board again. 6 minutes.

Wash laughed, a kind of snorty chuckle that came from the back of his throat.

“Yeah, and I’m the King of fucking England,” hhe said with a sarcastic laugh.

“No, I mean it, I think we’re okay,” Tucker said again, as the train opposite them departed, leaving a gust in its wake. “We’ll be okay,” he repeated, more to himself than anything else.

Wash hummed in response, looking out across the tracks, searching for the lights of his train in the rapidly darkening distance. He readjusted the bag on his shoulder, and then leaned back again, against the wall behind him.

“Not everything is how we want it to be,” he said, with a pointed glance up in Tucker’s direction. “But that’s okay. That’s what makes life life. And like, yeah, it sucks, but that’s just how it is. Not everything can be perfect.”

“Not everything can be perfect,” Tucker repeated, almost on impulse, as a train pulled up on their side of the platform, rolling to a stop just in front of them, the door sliding open with a mechanical whoosh. Wash stepped forward, away from him and toward the cold silver metal of the train, his short blonde hair blowing slightly in the wind as it passed through the corridor.

“I’m going to see you again soon, right?” Tucker asked, turning to look down at him.

“Probably not. You’ll see me again, just…I don’t know how soon,” Wash said, a strange, almost unreadable expression plastered across his face as he stepped over the gap and onto the train, turning back to give Tucker a pained smile. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, and he knew it. He knew Tucker could see it too. Something like a mixture of heartbreak and acceptance and fear and longing, all in one complicated glance. Truth was, he didn’t know if he was coming back from this last mission. He didn’t really care if he did either. Everything was just grey. Lifeless.  

“I love you,” Tucker said, voice cracking as he forced the words out of his mouth. He internally cringed when he heard the door closing warning go off from the station speakers.

“No, you don’t,” Wash said simply, as the train’s doors closed before Tucker could get another word in. He turned wordlessly away from the window, leaving him there as the train pulled away from the platform. He thought he caught a glimpse of him through the tinted window, but he couldn’t be sure, and then his train was gone. He was gone.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

“It’s not your fault,” Wash said, curled into the side of Tucker’s chest. The moonlight was streaming in through the blinds, illuminating the harsh lines of his jaw, of his cheekbones, of his nose, as he looked up at him as they were laying there. Tucker shifted slightly, leaning up on one of his elbows to look down at him. He was always looking down at him.

“What?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard the question.

Wash readjusted himself, curling his arms toward his chest and staying on his side, not looking at him as he replied, “It’s not your fault I fell in love with you.”

“Oh,” Tucker said, with all the surprise and conviction of an inmate on death row.

“Anyone would, really. There’s so much about you that’s just…”

“Stop,” he said, laying back down on his back next to him. “I don’t wanna hear anymore.”

“Okay,” Wash said, pulling Tucker back toward him, and leaning his head on his chest. Tucker wrapped his arm around his shoulders, and Wash wrapped his around his waist. “You’re very warm,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“You always say that, and yet you complain about my hands being cold.”

“Your hands are cold, but you’re warm,” he justified, with a small shrug. “All the sunlight in you just builds up in your chest, so there’s not enough to go all the way to your hands.”

“All my sunlight, huh? That’s poetic as fuck, dude,” Tucker said, almost sounding proud.

“Yeah, I guess. You’ve always been sunlight to me though, so bright and beautiful.”

“That’s pretty lame,” he said with a light laugh.

“I mean it, though,” Wash said, his voice taking a serious lilt that quieted Tucker for a few minutes. They laid there together, in the almost dark, Tucker’s fingers tracing patterns across his shoulder. The moonlight filtering in was mediocre at best, but he thought it was fitting. It kept his half-sight to half-sight, and that was enough. It was always just enough for him. He was always happy to settle for second best. He was always second best.

“I always thought of you more like lightning,” Tucker says, after a few minutes.

“Huh?”

“You’ve never been sunlight to me, it’s always just been lightning. I dunno why.”

“Destructive,” Wash offered, with a shaky sigh. “Heard that one before.”

“No, no it’s not that,” he said, leaning down to press a soft kiss into his forehead, “It’s never that. I think it’s just that you’re…hard to control, I guess. You’re wild…but quick and precise at the same time. I don’t know. Am I making sense?”

“It’s all fake,” Wash admitted, pointedly looking at a blank spot on his wall. “It’s so that people listen to me. They need me to be a commander, someone to follow. Not…whatever I am right now.”

“I know, I know,” Tucker comforted, smoothing down Wash’s hair, moving stray pieces out of his face.

“It’s just that no one…nevermind,” Wash started, then decided better of it.

“No, keep going, I want to know what you were going to say.”

“I…no one’s ever gotten close enough to me to see past the ruse,” Wash whispered, seemingly afraid of what would happen if he said it out loud. “Not Epsilon, not Carolina, not anyone from Project Freelancer. Nobody.”

“No one’s ever gone far enough into the flames to see the ashes,” Tucker said, and Wash laughed, just a little.

“What?”

“Poetic,” he replied sarcastically.

“Shut up, I hate you,” Tucker said, laughing too. They laid there again in the silence, moonlight filtering in through the broken blinds. It was a good allegory, he thought, that even the light illuminating them was broken somehow.

“It’s not your fault either,” he says, after a few minutes.

“What?”

“It’s not your fault you fell in love with me,” Tucker says, not looking at him, his eyes focused intently on one of the lines on the ceiling.

“Oh,” Wash says simply, curling a little bit away from him. Tucker turns to lay on his side, pulling him closer, though, and he rests his head on his shoulder.

“I wish things could be different for us,” Tucker said, and Wash let out one short laugh. “I mean it, I really do,” he reaffirmed, more firmly this time.

“Me too,” Wash said, closing his eyes tight. “Me too.”


End file.
